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what do we want to see in the next GOF mod!

Hey, there are a few things I would love to see added and changed. I'll list them by importance/achievability. ( Be aware, I've only played GOF1.1.1 so I may be asking for things already in a newer version.)

Mainly, the game is too easy. You can make millions easily by taking prizes and selling them with very little risk. Most of my suggestions would help amend this and make battles not so cut and dry as who has the best ship and the biggest guns.

Separate difficulty options
Obviously we would all like to see the AI acting more realistic. I remember one of the first missions where you ended up fighting the sea wolf but having to use a lesser ship. He kept away chaining me from a distance, I struggled and took a few goes to board him, the whole time liking the challenge. I'm not so sure if it was because he was more intelligent (at a higher difficulty) than the other AI's or if it was simply because my ship was far inferior, but it was good. So good, that I went back and started a game on the highest difficulty level, hoping all the battles would be like this but I couldn't get past the first mission because the hand-to-hand was too hard.

Basically, is there a way to up the AI sailing level to max while keeping the hand-to-hand level medium? Lots of games have separate difficulty for each aspect of the game and I'm sure it's just a case of adding some sliders or drop downs and duplicating/renaming the variables.

All ships from start and booty divided up
Also, I don't understand why higher rate ships don't appear until your level increases. This isn't realistic and they should be around from the beginning making it even harder again. There should be far fewer of the large ships than lesser ones, meaning that once you have managed to work your way up, you must weigh up the costs of keeping big ships and/or a large convoy or crew, against the chances of finding enough valuable prizes (of which you should only get a cut of when you sell them and not the whole thing) to maintain them.

Ships deteriorate with time
While we're on the subject of ships, their max hull/sails and therefore other attributes, should gradually deteriorate over time. Their resistance to damage from weather, shot, collision and firing their own guns should also reduce with age.

Stronger influence of the hands
The ability of the crew should have a much larger effect on the performance of your ships then they currently stand to. At the end of the day, they are the ones aiming the guns and reefing the sails. Their ability should be exponentially more time consuming to improve, so that the first level may only take a few month at sea and the last level a few years.

Interesting coastal battles?
It would be great too if the coastline was more intricate and difficult to navigate. I'm not sure if this could be easily achieved by lowering the waterline or something. If not, then I doubt it's doable. Basically, it would be cool to gain an advantage from the landscape as opposed to each battle being more or less the same. The french position during the battle of grand port being a good example of what you could achieve with a little foresight.

Horrible Officer menu
I would love to change the officer menu to something more like a drag and drop system and would gladly design the interface but I doubt it's something you would like to change due to the time consuming nature and likely problematic process it would take.

Sorry for the long post but I could double it's length if I sat and had a good think about it. The game could be unbelievable if it wasn't for the bugs, poor UI and the unfortunate Pirates of the Caribbean stuff. You guys do a great job making it playable, really appreciate the effort!
 
Wow - great lists! A lot of things you guys mention, the mod team have been trying to implement for a very long time. We have played with the AI a bunch. Several of us have spent untold hours trying to get the ships from spinning in combat. We have actually had some success in this area, but when we introduced more realistic speeds and weather effects back in CMV 3.0, everybody hated the game, because the play became so slow (like it would be in real life). We have settled on an approach since 3.2 that we combine realism with playability, erring on the side of fun. I have a version that would put you all to sleep when you don't have the weather wind.

I will also let you know that your desire for larger ships being present earlier on in game-play is very doable if you modify a couple of files (mainly ships utilities and AIFantoms) and lengthening the lists with more ships for each set of appropriate skill levels. I have actually already been working on this in my Period/ERAs mod. It was an easy mod, because I eliminated many ships from the lists already for each era where they didn't really belong, and substituted some with more advanced ships.

Last anything is possible given time and talent, however, we lack a lot of both right now. The mod team continues to learn, but we still cannot modify source code and still don't have a consistently permanent "whiz kid" coder on the team. We do our best when we have the time, and always appreciate talented new volunteers.

MK
 
Hey, thanks for the reply and sorry for this post as I have "had a think about it" and am almost certainly about to "double the length" of my first post. :oops:

I've played with the ultra realistic settings you speak of and although it was strange and frustrating that we always seemed to be going so slow, the main irk was that I knew the enemy would still use the same "tactics" (heh) and that I was in no danger whatsoever of losing the battle.

This is the case in almost every battle you enter. I fought the Flying Dutchman (the first encounter) with a frigate and two 66 gun man-o-wars while sat near a friendly fort. He sunk 1 man-o-war and I sailed away with the other two after his rigging was decimated. That is supposed to be as hard as it will ever get and I sailed away without much difficulty (may I add, this is on the most difficult setting I could start on and still get past the Spaniard in the room on the 1st PB mission. It literally took me hours to kill that blackguard!).

Do you think the "Separate difficulty options" would be achievable? Having thought about it, the ease and frequency of battles is what harms the longevity of the game the most for me. In order to to make battles more difficult, I would add to the above list. This time not in perceived order of feasibility, more one as a response to the previous.

Near impossible battles and their resolution
I would love the game to throw up battles that I can't win (unless I have an irresistible force). Battles where I either run or die fighting (I'm sure some would be thrown up by including all ships from the start). Caught against 3 superior ships, faster, double the crew, with rangier guns (at the same time within reason. 3 man-o-wars aren't going to set about a tartan with 20 crew and nothing in it's hold).

Upon realising this you should be able to strike colours at the cost of your ship, crew, cargo and keeping your officers. If you end up sunk you lose the lot. Both occasions starting at the nearest neutral port with all your money and items. This of course, would immediately prompt you to re-load the game. So to make you consider otherwise we need to take away some of the hassle of a defeat.

Finding a new ship
When you have no officers and find a new ship (either from the shipwright or by hook or crook) you should be issued some randomly generated officers for those positions unmanned, of a generally low standard, though the odd one or two may well be admirable. A relatively undermanned crew of generally sub-standard men and some limited supply of food, rum, planks, cloth etc.

Money too easy to come by
As it stands, in the situation mentioned above, you could just go out buy a new ship/convoy, sail to Bermuda and within an in-game month, be decked out with the best fleet in the Caribbean. Money is just too easy to come by.

As I suggested only taking a share of the money from a prize would in my opinion, be more realistic but I would also question whether the values, both to buy and to sell a ship are accurate enough. Wouldn't lowering these values mean making a million much harder and improve the longevity of a game?

Dockyard master no longer god
The notion of a dockyard having anything bigger than a frigate for sale seems unrealistic to me. Personally, I would only have them stock small gunboats and merchant ships. Maybe even a new and 2nd hand list too, with prices and the attributes of the ships reflecting each.

Another thing that strikes me is the ability of the dockyard to buy/repair/store any ship. Firstly, they wouldn't have the money to buy and store larger ships. Maybe they could buy the small-medium sized ships most of the time, but certainly not all the man-o-wars/first rates. I would have it, so that only capital ports were guaranteed to buy larger ships. Then, as if bought immediately into the services, effectively remove them from the game, not to be sold when you go through their inventory.

Saving game for short term gain
Again, I hear you say "These changes favor re-loading the game, over effectively starting anew". Well, I would change the saving system too. So that you can only save in friendly ports (maybe neutral ones too) and an incremental auto-save as you either start a new mission or reach a "checkpoint" midway through one.

This (as well as a small fraction of any damage suffered by your ships, being made irreparable) would mean you don't go into battles with the almost blasé attitude that I, and I'm sure many of you, observe when the drums beat to quarters.

Raking fire?
Also, does raking fire stand to make any difference to the damage done as opposed to yard-arm to yard-arm? I've not noticed any. In fact, presenting the enemy your bow would seem a viable tactic, as they invariably miss the smaller profile and cause less damage. I would add that I can foresee the difficulty implementing this would bring. Though, if has been taken into account to a nominal degree, multiplying the damage done per shot shouldn't be too taxing a process.

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I would love to help implement these changes as I'm all too aware the list of amends must only ever grow longer. However, so far my tinkering goes as far as changing numbers and values which already exist. It would be great if there was a beginners manual to making mods, telling you names of common variables and where to find them.

As a web designer I have a knowledge of JS, PHP and AS. Though, I may see similarities in the code and if shown where to look, could comprehensively make changes to it, I'm no "whiz-kid". I could also help with Photoshopping any images and even textures, as I'm competent in C4D.

Ben.
 
That system of saving could be a game-killer for those of us who experience frequent crashing. I must say that I agree with the raking fire, but I've always placed that alongside multiple calibers of gun on a vessel in terms of possibility.
 
Post Captain said:
That system of saving could be a game-killer for those of us who experience frequent crashing.
Click to expand...

Agreed.

There is already in the game an option to restrict where saves can be made ( only being able to save in churches - for the hardcore player ) - the "only save in friendly ports (maybe neutral ones too) " - would just be a variant of that.
 
Fair points regarding the save games. I forgot about the crashing issues having hardly suffered from them (with the exception of the odd Agamemnon sighting) after the instal of GOF v1.1.1. :)

Is the "only save in churches" option in the ver1.1.1 and something that wouldn't force a new game?

Shot changes
I would love to see some changes regarding the types of shot too. Though I'm not familiar with the availability of differing types of shot during the age of sail, I would guess that explosive/chain shot wasn't as common as your typical round ball. I'd rather have it this way in game regardless, as the way it is now renders the common round shot surplus. Explosive shot being superior in every way. This might not be a change everyone would like so assuming the occurrence rates are simple numbers that I could change in a file, would someone be so kind as to point me in the right direction?

"De-ruddering?"
Also,do you think it would be feasible to duplicate the demasting code, changing the nomenclature to rudder___ and removing any triggers for animations/flag responses etc. Then change the sailing attribute effected to -90%-maneuverability. Adding some sort of de-rudder code, especially if it could be worked to only trigger under round shot fire, would offer another incentive to use it. Just a thought...
 
Sue.My.Chin said:
Is the "only save in churches" option in the ver1.1.1 and something that wouldn't force a new game?
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It is a feature of the original vanilla game. - You have to start a new game - It appears on the screen where you select your character ( as Hardcore game ).

:aar
 
I keep forgeting to find away around the church thing and make it so you can save in taverns instead. I don't remember the file that this information is located in :read
 
Sue.My.Chin said:
Shot changes
I would love to see some changes regarding the types of shot too. Though I'm not familiar with the availability of differing types of shot during the age of sail, I would guess that explosive/chain shot wasn't as common as your typical round ball. I'd rather have it this way in game regardless, as the way it is now renders the common round shot surplus. Explosive shot being superior in every way. This might not be a change everyone would like so assuming the occurrence rates are simple numbers that I could change in a file, would someone be so kind as to point me in the right direction?
Click to expand...

The most common types of shot were round shot and grape shot. It was fairly common to load a gun with a single round shot and grape shot (in that order) and fire both at once.
 
POTC naval style battle with ship models and aim functions that make sense, not based on eye level to sea. Some of the models seem to not have a functioning purpose other than to be a death trap. 3 Campaign modes Country, time lines, characters with functioning story plots. Easier sailing functions with detailed layouts, with a interface that is more functioning int he moment, like reload status and etc. Able to have infantry sharp shooters on deck to shot enemy crew. Cities being able to be spots by sea with no hidden bs, row your boat and find them, when the quest dictates the exact location of a port city you can not see,.......

Free Play, Sandbox versions, that is the true heart of a great game is re-playability!
 
I would love to see encounters with ships while in direct sail mode. so you can sale around off map and randomly encounter ships if this is at all possible to be put into this game. i know they have this in POTC but it would be nice to see it in this game as well.
 
Concening the saving of the game
The real hardcore game "live with your decisions" would be where the game saves automatically every time you transision from world map to sea or land and you can only have one "timeline of saves" because save in church kind of save isnt that much of a deal,lets say you are sunk you just reload in church and continue the game.I see the many problems and frustration this kind of playing could bring (crashing being the no.1 although i dont experince them) but also think of the tension beacuse now your life would be something you REALY dont want to lose and you would aproach battles and whole game dynamics diferently.Now thats a HARDCORE game :aarBut this would also require to lower the number of battles offcourse to mimic real life frequency and not have pirates sailing on more ships then all the countries together and a lot of other things too probably...:D
 
There's definitely value in changing the (or offering an alternative) game save function. Along with permanently damaging ship's attributes through battle, weathering and aging. This would add real commitment to actions, no matter how minor.
 
Kind of like weathering of ships etc? That would be interesting to say the least! I just want easier battles at sea, I often times play POTC over AOP2 because of the ease of using commands and the interactions seem easier to do.
 
Sue.My.Chin said:
There's definitely value in changing the (or offering an alternative) game save function. Along with permanently damaging ship's attributes through battle, weathering and aging. This would add real commitment to actions, no matter how minor.
Click to expand...

Don't forget that almost every injury encountered by a vessel, short of a broken keel, can be repaired. The game advances too slowly for aging to occur, but I think a reduction in speed and weatherlyness could be slowly accumulated (it would have to stop sometime) and peak after a few months due to growth on a vessel's underwater hull. This should be removable at any shipyard, but it should also be somewhat expensive and cost a certain amount of copper. (for vessels that would have had coppered hulls) I'm sure we could use the existing vessel upgrade system to do that.
 
Post Captain said:
Don't forget that almost every injury encountered by a vessel, short of a broken keel, can be repaired. The game advances too slowly for aging to occur, but I think a reduction in speed and weatherlyness could be slowly accumulated (it would have to stop sometime) and peak after a few months due to growth on a vessel's underwater hull. This should be removable at any shipyard, but it should also be somewhat expensive and cost a certain amount of copper. (for vessels that would have had coppered hulls) I'm sure we could use the existing vessel upgrade system to do that.
Click to expand...

I wasn't specifically referring to injuries, as such. More that the strength and structure would weaken. I read often that a ship would work more after suffering in heavy seas or an abundance of action.

The materials used naturally soften with age. Though, I take your point about the passage of time, you must accept that the amount of action the ships see in-game is several times more frequent. So damage should accumulate several times quicker. While repair is feasible, short of replacing all the knees, beams and frames etc. there is always going to be some residual wear accumulated.

I'm not talking about halving the hull strength or anything as significant as that. More that, over an in-game year or two, a ship that has been knocked about should be 3 or 4 percent worse off than an exact clone, who has spent a year or two without suffering such heavy seas and/or comparatively less action. Just enough to encourage you to look after them rather than rely on the repair yard.

I like the sheathing idea and just like mine above, it could be made by duplicating the existing code and adding to the in-game interface. The only problem I see with it is the timing, as sheathing wasn't widely used until the late 18th century. Would be a great add-on for the 18th century+ mods though.
 
I do realize that ships weren't coppered until the 1760's or so, so I would suggest calling the process something to the effect of "bottom-cleaning," since earlier vessels would have gone through a similar process without the copper.

After reading your clarified thoughts on the matter of aging, I found the idea much more feasible. However, while all the materials did degrade with time, everything short of the the ribs, framing, and hull planking (knees are not hard to replace at all) would have been continuously replaced. It would take up to a decade before the vessel's performance dropped off noticeably. (Leaks in the hull would occur far sooner, but those are fairly easy to fix.)
 
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